Poundland to be sold for £1 after wave of store closures across UK as front-running bidder revealed

POUNDLAND is set to be sold for just £1 as bidders circle the floundering business.

Gordon Brothers, the ex-owner of Laura Ashley, has become the frontrunner to takeover the bargain chain, which recently announced a wave of store closures across the UK.

Bidding for Poundland and its 825 UK stores is expected to begin on Tuesday sources told The Sunday Times.

Turnaround Investors were linked with a bid for Poundland.

These firms specialise in buying up struggling businesses in the hopes of turning them around.

A US based investor, Gordon Brothers, have been said to be the frontrunners in the bidding war.

Bidding on the UK chain is yet to close though with possible other buyers still waiting to appear.

A source told The Sunday Times that Poundland would be priced at “effectively a pound.”

Several interested parties are reportedly looking at bidding on the UK budget retailer.

Poundland is currently owned by the Warsaw-listed retailer Pepco, employs more than 18,000 people and has 825 shops in the UK.

RETAIL PAIN IN 2025

The British Retail Consortium has predicted that the Treasury’s hike to employer NICs will cost the retail sector £2.3billion.

Research by the British Chambers of Commerce shows that more than half of companies plan to raise prices by early April.

A survey of more than 4,800 firms found that 55% expect prices to increase in the next three months, up from 39% in a similar poll conducted in the latter half of 2024.

Three-quarters of companies cited the cost of employing people as their primary financial pressure.

The Centre for Retail Research (CRR) has also warned that around 17,350 retail sites are expected to shut down this year.

It comes on the back of a tough 2024 when 13,000 shops closed their doors for good, already a 28% increase on the previous year.

Professor Joshua Bamfield, director of the CRR said: “The results for 2024 show that although the outcomes for store closures overall were not as poor as in either 2020 or 2022, they are still disconcerting, with worse set to come in 2025.”

Professor Bamfield has also warned of a bleak outlook for 2025, predicting that as many as 202,000 jobs could be lost in the sector.

“By increasing both the costs of running stores and the costs on each consumer’s household it is highly likely that we will see retail job losses eclipse the height of the pandemic in 2020.”

WHAT IS GOING ON AT POUNDLAND

Last month, its parent company Pepco is said to have hired advisory firm Teneo to oversee the sale of the UK business.

It comes after Pepco said it was looking at “all strategic options” to separate Poundland from its brand.

The Polish group said it might turn its focus to its more profitable businesses in Europe.

Pepco previously warned that upcoming hikes to employer National Insurance Contributions (NICs) and national minimum wage would significantly add to its costs.

Late last year, it was revealed that profits at Poundland also tumbled by £641million in the year to September, with bosses again blaming slow sales amid a poor outlook thanks to measures set out by Reeves.

A spokesperson also said the huge loss was “due to a non-cash impairment at Poundland that relates to the acquisition of the UK chain in 2016”.

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